ommunication.

When Lactantius wrote his _Divinae Institutiones_ in 308, he was too
greatly impressed by the outrages of the pagan persecutions not to
protest most strongly against the use of force in matters of
conscience. He writes: "There is no justification for violence and
injury, for religion cannot be imposed by force. It is a matter of
the will, which must be influenced by words, not by blows.... Why
then do they rage, and increase, instead of lessening, their folly?
Torture and piety have nothing in common; there is no union possible
between truth and violence, justice and cruelty.[1] ... For they (the
persecutors) are aware that there is nothing among men more excellent
than religion, and that it ought to be defended with all one's might.
But as they are deceived in the matter of religion itself, so also
are they in the manner of its defence. For religion is to be
defended, not by putting to death, but by dying; not by cruelty but
by patient endurance; not by crime but by faith.... If you wish to
defend religion by bloodshed, by tortures and by crime, you no longer
defend it, but pollute and profane it. For nothing is so much a
matter of free will as religion."[2]

[1] Cf. Pascal, _Lettre provinciale_, xii.

[2] _Divin. Institut_., lib. v, cap. xx.

An era of official toleration began a few years later, when
Constantine published the Edict of Milan (313), which placed
Christianity and Paganism on practically the same footing. But the
Emperor did not always observe this law of toleration, whereby he
hoped to restore the peace of the Empire. A convert to Christian
views and policy, he thought it his duty to interfere in the
doctrinal and ecclesiastical quarrels of the day; and he claimed the
title and assumed the functions of a Bishop in externals. "You are
Bishops," he said one day, addressing a number of them, "whose
jurisdiction is within the Church; I also am a Bishop, ordained by
God to oversee whatever is external to the church."[1] This
assumption of power frequently worked positive harm to the Church,
although Constantine always pretended to further her interests.

[1] Eusebius, _Vita Constantini_, lib. iv, cap. xxiv.

When Arianism began to make converts of the Christian emperors, they
became very bitter toward the Catholic bishops. We are not at all
astonished, therefore, that one of the victims of this new
persecution, St. Hilary, of Poitiers, expressly repudiated and
condemned this regime of